While bho's down in Mexico today lying about how medical "outcomes" in the US lag behind those elsewhere in the modern world, these facts from the head of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School tell the real story. Who are you going to believe - a neuroadiologist from Stanford or a socialist lying sack of @#$%?

http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html

MEDICINE AND HEALTH:
Here’s a Second Opinion
By Scott W. Atlas

Ten reasons why America’s health care system is in better condition than you might suppose.

By Scott W. Atlas. (who's also the head of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School):

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.

1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.

3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:
• Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).

5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”

6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”

8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).

9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.

10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.

Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.

Indo

08-11-2009, 09:37 PM

Finally.
I was wondering when somebody other than me went and looked up the data.

Are you paying attention SteelTalons?

revefsreleets

08-12-2009, 08:21 AM

There's no doubt we have the best hospitals and doctors in the World. That ain't what's broke...

steelreserve

08-12-2009, 12:23 PM

This should be news to no one. The problem isn't that we have bad health care, and the problem isn't the insurance companies. The problem is that hospitals and drug companies get to make up whatever price they want. Fix that, and you've fixed the problem with our health care system. Instead, they want to go through all this to basically accomplish nothing. You're doing it wrong.

stlrtruck

08-12-2009, 01:14 PM

This should be news to no one. The problem isn't that we have bad health care, and the problem isn't the insurance companies. The problem is that hospitals and drug companies get to make up whatever price they want. Fix that, and you've fixed the problem with our health care system. Instead, they want to go through all this to basically accomplish nothing. You're doing it wrong.

I believe there is still a problem with the health insurance companies. Their rates are just as high as the drug companies and hospitals. I pay roughly $320 per month for my family of 5 to be insured. When I go to the doctor it is a $20 co-pay. Then whatever my insurance doesn't cover, I have to pick up the tab. So in one year I pay approximately $3,840, visit the doctors office, on average about 4 times per year so that's another $80, my children may go to the doctor's 3 times per year so that's another $180, and my wife rarely goes so we'll say, just for sake of argument she's another $40. So now after the co-pay I'm out over $4100. If the company I work at becomes an at-risk company (meaning more employees go to the doctors) then my premiums go up. If I'm privately insured, they can drop me - without warning.

I can get screwed either way.

steelreserve

08-12-2009, 01:39 PM

True, insurance isn't cheap, and it pisses me off how the insurance companies always seem to look for ways to shirk their responsibility. But I don't think that would be as big of a problem if the people providing the health care hadn't artificially jacked up the price so high in the first place. If you put a law in place that told the hospital "No, you can't try to bill $60,000 for something that costs maybe $1,000 or $2,000 to provide," then all of a sudden insurance gets a lot cheaper, your out-of-pocket costs go way down, and there's not so much fighting over what's getting paid for and what's not.

KeiselPower99

08-12-2009, 02:10 PM

Coverage for people may suck but the drs and hospitals in America are top notch. There is a reason people still come to America to live.

Godfather

08-12-2009, 02:18 PM

True, insurance isn't cheap, and it pisses me off how the insurance companies always seem to look for ways to shirk their responsibility. But I don't think that would be as big of a problem if the people providing the health care hadn't artificially jacked up the price so high in the first place. If you put a law in place that told the hospital "No, you can't try to bill $60,000 for something that costs maybe $1,000 or $2,000 to provide," then all of a sudden insurance gets a lot cheaper, your out-of-pocket costs go way down, and there's not so much fighting over what's getting paid for and what's not.

Best way to lower costs is to move Big Insurance's cheese by taking the restrictions of HSAs. If you let HSAs be a legitimate option people would ditch insurance, put that money in the bank, and make their own decisions instead of throwing their money down a rathole. Even better, doctors get paid right away instead of waiting 3 months and having their staff make 30 phone calls to the insurance company.

stlrtruck

08-12-2009, 02:22 PM

True, insurance isn't cheap, and it pisses me off how the insurance companies always seem to look for ways to shirk their responsibility. But I don't think that would be as big of a problem if the people providing the health care hadn't artificially jacked up the price so high in the first place. If you put a law in place that told the hospital "No, you can't try to bill $60,000 for something that costs maybe $1,000 or $2,000 to provide," then all of a sudden insurance gets a lot cheaper, your out-of-pocket costs go way down, and there's not so much fighting over what's getting paid for and what's not.

Good point.

stlrtruck

08-12-2009, 02:23 PM

Best way to lower costs is to move Big Insurance's cheese by taking the restrictions of HSAs. If you let HSAs be a legitimate option people would ditch insurance, put that money in the bank, and make their own decisions instead of throwing their money down a rathole. Even better, doctors get paid right away instead of waiting 3 months and having their staff make 30 phone calls to the insurance company.

My only problem with the HSA is how much to put in and if I understand correctly, which I may not, if I don't use all that money in the year, then I lose it.

Indo

08-12-2009, 02:25 PM

True, insurance isn't cheap, and it pisses me off how the insurance companies always seem to look for ways to shirk their responsibility. But I don't think that would be as big of a problem if the people providing the health care hadn't artificially jacked up the price so high in the first place. If you put a law in place that told the hospital "No, you can't try to bill $60,000 for something that costs maybe $1,000 or $2,000 to provide," then all of a sudden insurance gets a lot cheaper, your out-of-pocket costs go way down, and there's not so much fighting over what's getting paid for and what's not.

This is a common fallacy.

In fact, the INSURANCE companies do set the prices--they dictate how much they will reimburse a hospital and a doctor for services provided. The hosp and the doctor can bill whatever they want. But the Insurance company says, for example, we will reimburse the hospital XXX dollars for your patient's hospitalization for his episode of congestive heart failure. Period. The hospital can TRY to charge 6 bazillion dollars, but they will get XXX and ONLY XXX. It is related to something known as the DRG (Diagnostic Related Group). This goes for physicians as well. Doesn't matter how much they bill the patient. They will get ONLY what the insurance co. pays. Period. AND a physician generally CANNOT bill the patient the difference. It IS NOT legal.

It can get a little complicated, but I don't really have time right now to explain this any further...maybe later today or in the near future.

Vincent

08-12-2009, 03:02 PM

This is a common fallacy.

In fact, the INSURANCE companies do set the prices--they dictate how much they will reimburse a hospital and a doctor for services provided. The hosp and the doctor can bill whatever they want. But the Insurance company says, for example, we will reimburse the hospital XXX dollars for your patient's hospitalization for his episode of congestive heart failure. Period. The hospital can TRY to charge 6 bazillion dollars, but they will get XXX and ONLY XXX. It is related to something known as the DRG (Diagnostic Related Group). This goes for physicians as well. Doesn't matter how much they bill the patient. They will get ONLY what the insurance co. pays. Period. AND a physician generally CANNOT bill the patient the difference. It IS NOT legal.

It can get a little complicated, but I don't really have time right now to explain this any further...maybe later today or in the near future.

Indo, Indo, Indo.

Don't confuse us with the facts. Our minds are made up. We must do this NOW. We can't delay. We need to do it f-f-f-for t-t-the ch-ch-children. And anybody that disagrees is a racist.

We hear that repeatedly on tv.

Godfather

08-12-2009, 03:16 PM

My only problem with the HSA is how much to put in and if I understand correctly, which I may not, if I don't use all that money in the year, then I lose it.

Never heard that part. If that's the case it would defeat the purpose, and it needs to be fixed. There should be no time limit.

stlrtruck

08-12-2009, 03:42 PM

Never heard that part. If that's the case it would defeat the purpose, and it needs to be fixed. There should be no time limit.

As I mentioned, I could be wrong but I remember interviewing for a job about a year ago and the guy was describing it. I may have gotten it mixed up with the FSA as far as the not getting money back.

Indo

08-12-2009, 04:32 PM

Indo, Indo, Indo.

Don't confuse us with the facts. Our minds are made up. We must do this NOW. We can't delay. We need to do it f-f-f-for t-t-the ch-ch-children. And anybody that disagrees is a racist.

We hear that repeatedly on tv.

I know! It's unbelievable the spin these people (News--er,i mean--- Opinion Agencies and Reporters, etc)